In favor for-in favor of

"but somewhere in between Rufus and his cronies walked out" Comma between "between" and "Rufus"

"defeated like a paper ball" Nice image.

"how bad I wished it was true" was-were

"dull ache in my chest; the one I'd mistaken" ;-:

I'm a little unclear on what happened to the Turks besides Elena, Reno, Rude, and Vincent. We hear Elena die, but I didn't realize that the others did not get away either until Reno, at the end, talks about how they are all gone. Is it supposed to be left open?

I liked Reno reminiscing on Rude's death. It was a nice blend of childisms (best friend, never, weird grammar) and Reno's well-executed ability to evoke beautiful images (like breaking off into little lights).

A couple of things, though. It made me want to know Rude better. It was a very dramatic, emotional scene, but I don't feel the same way about Rude that Reno says he does. Their relationship seemed close in earlier chapters, but still more business-like than a friendship. I don't know if it's something you want to explore or not, but I thought I'd mention it.

Second, these paragraphs:

"I tried to wrap my mind around that, but it didn't make any sense to me. Rude... couldn't die. Not after all the shit we'd been through. He just wasn't capable of it. It just wasn't something he could do. So he wasn't dead. None of them were.

That's the lie I tried to sell to myself. But I don't know who I was kidding. No matter how bad I wished it was true, it wasn't. It was something the air in my hands, still heavy and tingling and warm from where Rude had been just a few moments ago, told me bluntly.

They were gone. All gone."

Come off as a little underwhelming and cliche after the Rude specific reflections. It's a little draggy, and not nearly as effective, so maybe pare it down just to communicate that Reno has now extended his Rude realizations to all of the Turks.

In general, though, those were very small complaints. I think this chapter is my favorite so far because it took me somewhere specific (no generic drug-addicts, big-player bad guys). The pacing is also better this chapter. You draw out the bitterness effectively and make us wonder who the traitor is so that we are both surprised and shocked at our own surprise when we find out who it is. I am pretty hooked now. The main event started out with a bang, squashing my complaints about slowness. I am curious about how Cissnei will complicate things, how Yuffie (who just seemed to be Reno's "little wife" before now) will get involved. Nice work. I'm eager to check out the next installment.

"the green glow of the brown crates stacked around the room; they were piled high and glowing" two glow words

I feel like you have too many colors. Everything has one. Your reader can't track every color, so you might want to limit things to really pertinent colors. Maybe the green is more important than the brown crate or the blue roof.

"Last I heard, Wutai was completely leveled. Barren and empty and desolate from the war and death-bringing missiles that whizzed through the air and burnt villages and families to the ground.

Yeah. Shinra always put mako to good use."

Love this. You've got your long sentence before and then the punch. These constructions get used often, but rarely correctly.

"and by the time they, had Rude was" The comma should be after the had, not before.

I like the little detail about Elena and the Shinra boxes. Things like this make your characters shine before you even introduce them.

Nice Elena. Just her rambly nature and flat insistence.

lol at "Turk-ing."

Vincent's eyes-why gold? I realize it's AU, but his eyes were red in-game even before experiments. So I'm just wondering if there's a reason for the color change.

"expected, anyway" Nix the comma.

"Whatever's running through your head, trip it."

I ran my tongue over my teeth and smiled thinly" A little awkward with the running and ran.

The Knives conversation goes on too long. We have the Verdot flashback. Then the bit about Cissnei. Then Reno's musings. Then the actual discussion. It just feels like more of the same. If you want, introduce the idea in Knives' backstory, then mention that Cissnei walked away (but briefly, maybe like a line). Then just have Knives give her Reno interruption and have him silently agree. Just to cut it short.

In general, this chapter moved a little too slowly for me. We had some action in the last chapter, but then we toned down the pace again to introduce new characters. I don't exactly know how to get around it, but maybe go back and trim each new introduction (Vincent, Elena, Tseng (actually, I think you did Tseng pretty well)) so that we get a sense of maybe one striking physical feature and one striking feature of personality. I get the idea that they're important, so we'll probably figure out the rest as we go by their actions instead of Reno's mental musings.

I loved the bit about the drug addict. I thought it was, in many ways, more moving than the scene with Benjy. It was compassionate, but also horrible because you're left thinking about her little girl. Then you artfully discard both notions when Reno confesses that he just did it for the job/as an experiment to see if the mako was too strong. It was done beautifully. My only complaint is that you used too many adjectives to describe the woman's appearance. Especially the hair (three). We can get the idea that she's strung out with fewer adjectives. Example, the track-mark scratching was an excellent touch. It almost makes the rest (minus the clothing to show her hooker status) seem unnecessary and flat.

Knives is an interesting throw-back to Before Crisis. The relationship you set up between her and Reno is an interesting one. It'll be great to see what happens when he betrays the Turks.

Excellent work! I am excited to keep reading. It's been more than a month, so I'm eager for the next chapter.

PEN AGAINST SWORD'S SUPER KAWAII ULTRA MEGA REVIEW FOR CHAPTER ONE BULLETPROOF DIARY KONNICHIWA

(oh my god, so totally kidding)

Okay. So. First, the critique - I'll get that out of the way.

You have a way with words, koky, BUT. But. Here's the but:

Be careful of cliche, be careful of over-writing. Over-writing is great in the draft - you can cut back as much as you want. It's harder when you underwrite and have to get more going. However, you have to know when to cut back. I'm not going to cite tons of examples because this is the sort of stylistic and writing judgment you have to make for yourself (and which I am still learning as well), but watch what you're writing and make sure it's necessary. Setting the scene is lovely, but be careful.

As for the cliche - you are going for a dramatic tone. Stylistically, you are achieving this, but sometimes I felt through this first chapter that you were overdoing it. I know you're trying to set the gritty scene, and you're getting into your Reno voice - and that's wonderful and you're doing a great job - however, be careful of lines like this:

"Murder. Misery. Grief. Suffering. Something along those lines."

"The gritty pages of this notebook are splattered with blood and smeared with the bluish-green residue of finely mined mako."

"Detached. Professional. Cold."

Those are the sort of things you want to avoid. Find new ways to say them, or imply them otherwise. These are descriptions your readers will draw better from the horrific things you show them that happen within this story. I don't think you should have to spell it out. You're a good enough writer that you can avoid that trap. Also, these words tend to be overused.

Positives:

As S. Zix said, your Reno voice is superb, and to me, fresh. I don't know quite what it is, maybe it defies description, but it's very original. It's not trying too hard to be cool, it's not trying too hard to be dark, and it's not ignoring who he is fundamentally as a character. Even in this AU, he feels like Reno. Muy excellente, koky.

Your dialogue is great. Your strongest writing tends to be when you're writing dialogue. I especially loved the bits with Rude in this chapter. I think you're good to go on that front. More than good to go, really. A lot of writers struggle with dialogue, and you've got it goin' on, babeh.

This AU you are constructing actually has me interested for more. Can't say that happens to me often with AUs. Watchin' this one, koky, my man, and watchin' it closely. Keep up the good work, and I hope this review doesn't cut you too deep, because I really do like it. :)

Good luck with getting it posted up, kokster.

Stream of consciousness, as I read section:

"mane of red hair" seems a bit too poetic for your Reno, whose voice I otherwise find flawless

The Turks descriptions got excessive in the beginning. Especially since I found them redundant. Let's take a look.

"According to Shinra law, I'm one of the slimiest bastards around, guilty of the worst crimes—murder, robbery, blackmail, trafficking… blah blah blah. All that good stuff. Because I'm a hoodlum, a brute—some might even say a criminal. But to hell with 'em; there're bigger problems than their stuffy opinions."

You should cut entirely. Since you already described Turks, and we should leave it at that.

You probably only want one paragraph describing Shinra, since we have the same problem there.

I almost want you to end the preface with this line:

"I'm a Turk.

...Scared yet?"

Sorry for such overhaul already. I just want to cut the Preface short. Because I feel like Reno would totally cut the bullshit, and it would be stronger with only half of the text, but that's just me.

"And maybe I didn't deserve the little time we had, maybe I was leeching off of someone else's good karma—but screw them anyway." Random philosophical reflection that sort of throws me out of the story.

I love the short snatches of Wutai.

You started on the Turks again. Same old lines.

"I stripped off the black sweats and grey tank before I slipped" Unintentional rhyme in here. Because if I don't find something technical, I consider myself a failure. Even though Moira's an extra awesome fantastic beta.

"They looked pretty tame, pretty standard fare—but they never seemed to mean that." Made me "Eh?" Sort of weird sentence structure.

Semi-colons are meant to be used sparingly. Maybe it's just a personal preference, but the connections between thoughts and ideas are always interesting when you draw them rarely by use of punctuation.

"The first thing I heard was the sirens" Sirens are plural, but the rest of the sentence treats them singular. So change to "The first things I heard were the sirens."

"And idea how long he'll take" And-Any

"I didn't miss the smile on Aerith's face as she turned to pull out a small white card from the cart when I said "she,"" Sort of weird order that makes me go "huh?" I would think you would say something like "I didn't miss the smile on Aerith's face when I said "she," even as she turned to pull out..."

That out of the way, I always start with the bad stuff. It's a pretty short list.

As you probably noticed if you trudged through the section above, I mostly had problems with redundancy and Reno getting philosophical too early. I feel like this will be a redemptive/reflective piece, ultimately, where Reno goes through a big change. So I think a lot of his reflecting and saying awkward things about the Turks was a little much. I get that he understands that what he does might be considered wrong, but I think it's 1) too much, like you're banging it into my head, and 2) too early, like Reno just can't keep the thoughts back, even as he kills the kid on the streets, it's secretly eating him, which I guess I don't quite buy yet.

Occasionally, your adjectives struck me as a little unnecessary. For example, the "glossy black car." Given your description of what Shinra's like, I expect the car to be shiny and well groomed, so including glossy doesn't add or alter anything. The adjective is also not that interesting, so I would just take it out.

Also, what is Aerith doing out at like 5 in the morning? I mean, really.

But that's basically it. Seriously. Now the good stuff.

I love this story so much, having only read the first chapter. Your Reno voice is nearly flawless. Your slum-living details are the things that make me dislike your redundancy simply because you're so good at showing that I can't possibly justify why you're telling me so much! I mean, you could leave out all of Reno's brooding and just show the scene with Benjy, and I would probably be more affected by the horror that is the Turks. The way you've started painting Yuffie's relationship with Reno, even with only one conversation and a bit of Reno's reflections, is priceless. I already have a sense for the balanced dynamic between them. I can tell she's going to be his weakness, or she's going to somehow get involved, and this might be a sort of catalyst. Your illustration of Aerith's character, too, is wonderful. I kept saying "Yes, finally, someone who can write a good Aerith," but then I realized that this story is not even really about Aerith much-so far at least-and I found myself both surprised and refreshed.

(I said I had no more complaints, but I do have one more. Rude. And I'm only sticking it here because I felt like his characterization fell a little flat by comparison only. He hasn't done anything I wouldn't expect, but he's just there. I think that his relationship with Reno might be a little more involved and connected. I think he'd have a little bit more to do in the Benjy scene. One thing you did beautifully was the part where Reno wordlessly left dealing with the boy's request to die with Rude, and I wanted to see more of that.)

You've also painted your setting well. I have a picture of your Midgar that looks even clearer than the one in the game, which is impressive in and of itself. I know how Reno looks. I know how the setting looks. I know how Rude and Yuffie and Aerith look. I know what life is like. Often, fanfiction writers will not care about their pieces as self-contained, but you've fixed that up almost effortlessly.

I love this, Koky. Really, I do. I think I'm going to fav and alert this without even reading Chapter 2. I expect I won't be disappointed : ).

KOKY! You should've told me you published the Bulletproof Diary! :D

Anyways, I love it. Reno is perfect, I really like that he's not the goofy-guy like in ACC, even though I love the goofy Reno.;)Hope to see an update soon!

3 See you around!

Some scenes like the shower were superfluous, but the prose about his uniform was quite cool, especially his reaction.

This is definitely AU since the ages of characters are altered significantly; Yuffie would be underage otherwise, assuming Aerith is seventeen (or Reno is just a bad judge of age, like any man).

The tongue started out gritty, but even he toned himself down for the sake of instances where it would befoul the setting. He is soft on women, no doubt; he thought Aerith was a whore, initially.

You don't need a sex scene in itself to involve sexuality; most of it is implied here.

The urban world is a total wasteland. You capture that well.

In all, this is a story I expect you to continue, so I can offer a full review. What is displayed is good so far.